The present invention relates to athletic training devices in general, and to agility training apparatuses in particular.
Many athletic activities require not only strength, but the ability to precisely control the athlete's movements, to have a sense of body positioning, and to rapidly change direction. Training for sports like football includes exercises in which the athlete practices moving with speed and precision through a predetermined course. The target course can be marked out with physical apparatuses. For example, a series of automotive tires can be laid out in a course, and an athlete can move through the course placing each footfall in a different tire. Yet tires are bulky and cumbersome, and burdensome to move, store, and place. The agility ladder is a lightweight and compact apparatus to facilitate this training, usually comprised of parallel transverse rungs, fabricated of a stiff material such as a plastic strip or tubing, and joined by parallel runners which connect the rungs, and which may be flexible strips of woven webbing, stiff tubing, or linkages. These agility ladder segments may be readily stored and transported, and can be laid out in sequence to provide a variety of training exercises. Various mechanisms for storing and transporting individual ladder segments are known. For example, metal handles can be extended through slots in individual rungs, or the entire assembly may be collected and stored in a nylon or netting drawstring bag.
What is needed is an agility ladder arrangement that can be readily stored, transported, and assembled into various configurations.